LAST NIGHT FROM GLASGOW 30th April 2021
Hadda Be deliver their debut album and it is a powerhouse of indie punky pop-rock energy. It’s the result of a lot of dues paid and effort. Having formed in 2018 under another name, a change of bass player and a legal challenge from a band with a similar name brought them to a new name – ‘Hadda Be’ in 2020. The Coronavirus turmoil meant their recording plans went pear-shaped and eventually, they’ve managed to get this out. And it’s great that they have – there’s a lot of craft in these arrangements but it never detracts from an underlying energy.
It’s a bit of a mystery why they are proud of having taken only five days to record the set when The Beatles recorded their first album in a day but having songs mostly recorded in a few takes benefits the sound. I’m picking up flavours of classic indie as well as well as the rush of the post-punk era of the late seventies (think TV21, The Only Ones, etc). Power chords are abundant and drums are the furious bash you’d get at a gig. Deliberately aimed at catching the live energy of the band, the production pushes the punch and progress of the tracks.
Standouts are Take It Away, with a nice drum gallop supporting a catchy set of hooks and a powerful emotionally cynical lyric, first single Another Life, and the most recent single, Wait In The Dark. Wait In The Dark is furiously fast and reflects the angry, speeded up times we have been living through. So It Goes is one of the few gentle pieces, slightly dreamlike in delivery, mulling changes (and featuring a title made famous by Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse 5). It precedes the loud and furious Fire, which as a classic pop-punk sound. The closing song is worth noting – Amber from the band is a nurse and her poem forms the lyrics to the song. Playing a recording of Nye Bevan describing the socialist principles the NHS was built on in 1948 is poignant in the context of the systematic selling off of it and reminds me of my anger at the selfish maggots that seek profit from public office.
On the evidence of this, Hadda Be are a politically and personally committed band that channel powerful feelings into powerful tunes. Roll on the day we can see them on stage again.